How easy are you to work with? Ten questions to ask yourself

Being a good colleague means different things to different people and one area I see consensus is that a good colleague is easy to work with

When I've unpacked what that means I found some interesting things. But rather than try to identify a series of rules to follow here are a series of reflection questions for you to try out. Ready?

1. How approachable are you?

2. How do you say "no"? Are you abrupt? Say maybe and then say no?

3. How up to date is your calendar? How readily can your team can schedule time with you?

4. How do you help the team around you learn? Are you a lecturer or a coach? Both are useful tools and neither is the "best" way, both have their time and place to use

5. How self aware are you recognizing the strengths of others as complimentary to your development areas?

6. How often do you scold people around you? Gossip? Roll your eyes at what's been said?

7. How often do you smile, laugh or crack a joke to lighten the mood?

8. How often do you raise your voice or speak in anger?

9. Do you build the self esteem of the people around you? Or do you belittle? What's the ratio between the two?

10. How often do you share your knowledge?

11. How often do you shoot down ideas?

12. How well do you protect your own "task time" (see #3 above)

13. How often are you on time? Late? To meetings or with deliverables, your reliability matters

14. How pedantic are you? I titled this 10 questions to ask yourself but listed 13. Did that wind you up? make you smile? did you even notice...

And outside of work? These questions are a useful tool to review how you behave at home...